Oscar nominations make for hard-to-call contest

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences on March 25 will present the 74th Annual Oscar Awards. Oscar is the holy grail of entertainment awards and winning one (or even more!) can add credibility and bankability to an artist's career, as well as untold millions to a film's box-office gross and home video income.

As showbiz awards go, it's taken pretty seriously.

This year's field of nominees was announced Feb. 12 and, as usual, there were a few surprises and many obvious picks. Let's look at a few of the more interesting things this time around.

The biggest surprise is the exclusion of Gene Hackman for his incredible work in "The Royal Tennenbaums." Hackman is a Hollywood mainstay and never fails to turn in a fine performance. He also seems to be the kind of guy the Academy likes.

Excluded in the same category Per-formance by a Supporting Actor was Steve Buscemi for "Ghost World." Bu-scemi has been great in films by Quentin Tarantino and is a member of the Coen brothers' regular stable of actors. He's also picked up six major critics societies' awards for his work in the film. (Note: "Ghost World," which never played in Springfield, is now on video.)

Jim Broadbent, nominated for "Iris," seems to be a favorite in this category, but don't count out Ian McKellen for "The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Rings."

Speaking of "Lord of the Rings," it pulled down the most nominations with 13, followed by "Moulin Rouge" and "A Beautiful Mind" with eight each. All three, along with "In the Bedroom" and "Gosford Park," were nominated for best picture.

Many people think it's to be the year of "The Lord," but my money's on "A Beautiful Mind." Not because I think it's necessarily a better film, but one need only look at the subject matter.

"A Beautiful Mind" is about a guy with schizophrenia, and Hollywood loves films about people with mental or physical handicaps who eventually triumph. Consider Oscar winners such as "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest," "Rainman," "Forrest Gump" or "The Si-lence of the Lambs."

Fairing even better with this phenomenon are the actors. Jack Nicholson, Dustin Hoffman, Tom Hanks and An-thony Hopkins, respectively, won Oscars for the films mentioned above. Daniel Day-Lewis ("My Left Foot"), Geoffrey Rush ('Shine''), Holly Hunter ("The Piano"), Marlee Matlin ("Children of a Lesser God") and Joanne Woodward ("The Three Faces of Eve") took home the prize, as well.

With that in mind, it makes the Best Actor category this year a tough call. Russell Crowe is nominated for "A Beautiful Mind" but so is Sean Penn as the mentally challenged dad in "I Am Sam."

Penn is an outsider, but Crowe won last year and a lot of the Hollywood crowd find the Australian boorish. Tom Wilkinson may be the spoiler here for his work in "In the Bedroom."

There's a long-awaited new category this year: Animated Feature. Any other year would have seen the fantastic "Monsters, Inc." a hands-down winner, but that film has to compete with "Shrek," a film many thought should have been nominated for best picture. No contest.

Another no-brainer is in the Best Foreign Film category. "Amlie" has proven the most successful film in the history of French cinema, and American audiences have taken to it as well. It's a beautiful film with a lot of quirks supplied by director Jean-Pierre Jeunet. It really is deserving of its sure win status.

In categories like Art Direction/Set Decoration, Cinematography and Film Editing, things seem to be between "The Lord of the Rings" and "Moulin Rogue." I don't know where I'd put my money, but my heart belongs to "Moulin Rogue."

My heart also belongs to a few other nominees, most of all Renee Zellweger for her lead role in "Bridget Jones' Diary." Zellweger raised a few British eyebrows when they heard their beloved Bridget was to be played by ... an Am-erican and a Texan, no less.

Zellweger made a believer out of them all in a funny, sweet and touching performance as the office worker in her mid-30s struggling with weight, cigarettes, drink, social clumsiness, men and life in general.

Another favorite is in the Original Screenplay field. Christopher and Jon-athan Nolan's "Memento" is written in a style that breaks new ground and must have taken much effort to make cohesive. It really is the most "original" screenplay in this category.

Win or lose, the actors, producers, di-rectors et al will tell you, "It's enough just to have been nominated."

Uh, sure ... and how much did you want for that bridge in Brooklyn?

(Jim Wunderle works at Associated Video Producers and is a Springfield free-lance writer and musician.)